As he grew older, Honegger more and more embraced Catholicism. And as he lived through the war, the occupation, and the liberation, he wrote his Symphony No. 3 "Liturgique" as "the reaction of modern man against barbarity, stupidity, sufferings, mechanism, and bureaucracy." Composed between October 1945 and April 1946, Honegger described his symphony as "a drama which is enacted, if you like, between three characters, real or symbolic: misery, happiness and man. These are eternal themes. I have tried to bring them up to date." The work was premiered in August 1946 by Charles Münch in Switzerland. The "Liturgique" is scored for large orchestra and set in three movements with titles taken from the Catholic liturgy: "Dies Irae," "De profundis clamavi," and "Dona nobis pacem." As Honegger vividly described them to a friend: "Dies Irae" is "Human terror in from of divine wrath...Day of Wrath! There is a rapid succession of violent themes...there is not time to breathe, no time to think, the hurricane carries everything before it, sweeps everything away. Blindly, furiously..."; "De profundis clamavi" is "the painful mediation of man forsaken by divinity—a meditation which is already a prayer...And how hard it is to put inside human mouths a hopeless prayer!"; and "Dona nobis pacem" is "Collective stupidity as a heavy-footed march for which I wrote a deliberately idiotic theme...a feeling of rebellion dawns in the ranks of the victims...a huge clamor thrice repeated breaks from the oppressed throats...a song of peace soars above the symphony as the dove soared in the old days above the immensity of the ocean."

© All Music Guide